It was most refreshing to hear a senior government minister acknowledge over the weekend that the country’s economic strategy needs to be reimagined, with a shift away from its dependence on construction. For far too long, people have been promised more of the same in terms of economic direction, whose short-term gains have come at a high cost for the community.

For decades, successive administrations have relied on the property development industry to kick-start the economy at a time of recession or to boost growth even when the economy was performing well. Many – including politicians and political parties – have, no doubt, prospered from this approach. But our pliable planning rules, too often bent to suit developers, have resulted in an intolerable encroachment on our precious environment and the unacceptable defacement of priceless urban landscapes.

Meanwhile, residents have had to put up with increasing inconvenience as the two islands became a permanent construction site. At the same time, property price inflation, built on the belief that stone is an infallible get-rich-quick investment, is making the country uncompetitive.

“We need to change the way we think; we need to change the way our economy works,” Finance Minister Clyde Caruana argued last Friday in a speech that was a breath of fresh air. “If we repeat the same things, we will get the same results.” This is indeed a commendable change in the political mindset.

The property developers’ lobby does not seem pleased with being pushed out of its comfort zone. One developer has even argued that Malta needs 100 more years of property development. Fortunately, Caruana has better ideas. He observed that “people are getting tired of cranes and concrete”. He promised that the government would also place greater emphasis on education, adding that “if we improve education, our economic activities will change.” Indeed, investing in an education system that achieves the desired results is the holy grail of good economic planning.

In its defensive reaction to the minister’s strategy statement, the Malta Developers Association argued that the solution should not be that of “making an enemy” of the construction industry but strengthening policies and laws to protect urban and rural environments.

The association seems to underestimate the irreversible damage already done by overdevelopment. The building frenzy has done enormous damage to our ecology, our heritage, our community’s quality of life, even to our tourism industry.

In the coming years, the construction industry can be kept quite busy restoring or upgrading some of the old and not-so-old buildings that are no longer fit for purpose. Many ugly and dysfunctional residential and commercial properties will need to be refurbished or demolished to make way for properties that adhere to stricter standards of liveability, safety and sustainability.

If Caruana’s statement does mark the beginning of a real change away from the more-of-the-same commitment to untenable economic strategies, it is most welcome. One hopes the Nationalist Party too will commit itself to relying less on property development for economic growth.

Despite the happy talk that precedes an election, Malta faces formidable socio-economic challenges that need to be addressed with urgency. There are significant sustainability risks not only in its dependence on property development but also in its reliance on the sale of passports, on its mass tourism model that gives low financial returns at a high socio-economic cost and on foreign investment fed by a low-taxation regime and low-cost imported labour.

Whether all this change can be achieved without introducing new taxes, as promised by Caruana, is debatable. But prioritising education, the environment and the people’s quality of life is the right thing to do.

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